by Rose Lerner
“My name is Ralph Cohen. Short for Raphael.” He made an unhappy choking sound and put a hand to his pocket as if to take something out—and then let the hand fall empty in his lap.
Her feelings had not yet caught up with her. She felt numb, as she had after her father died: Surely I should be upset? What’s wrong with me? “Mr.—Mr. Raphael, why are you telling me this?”
“I’m finished with swindling. I thought you should know the truth.” There was something eerie about such a big man speaking so quietly.
I think lately my brother would rather settle down, Mr. Cahill had said—no, he was Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen? He was a Jew? But he was so clean, and when she kissed him he’d smelled—well, of course Jews didn’t really have an unnaturally foul stink, but she hadn’t expected one to smell so good, like pears and wool and clean skin. “Where is your brother?”
He turned, his red-rimmed, pale eyes staring directly into hers from too close. “It’s always better to know the truth, isn’t it? Even if the truth is unbearable?” He bowed his head, fists clenched in his lap. “He’s not my brother.”
At first she thought she had misheard him, so garbled were the words, with almost no breath in them.
“Not—not by birth. He lied to me. He stole me. And I would have—I would have forgiven him if he’d told me.”
“Stole you? Stole you from where?” She had never given much thought or credence to the rumors that Jews stole Christian children, but it must be true. Yet she was sure Mr. Cohen loved his bro—he loved this man, and—to steal a child like that, out of covetousness of its golden hair and strong limbs, and raise it as one’s own—it was unnatural—diabolical. Mr. Cohen didn’t seem—
Her head spun. “Can you return to your family? Did they take other children? Can we find them? A—a Parliamentary inquiry—”
He blinked at her. “Pardon? I don’t—what ‘they’?”
“Mr. Cohen must have been a child.” Relief flooded her. Yes, of course, that was it. He had been a child. He wasn’t responsible. “There must have been men who told him what to do—”
He frowned in blank confusion, and then horror dawned on his face. “You’ve made up a story already, haven’t you? A story that fits what you already believe. What did we ever tell you about ourselves? That we have aunts? That we’re from Cornwall? We barely had to lie; you did the work for us. I don’t know why I thought telling the truth would work differently. You don’t know anything about me or my brother. Stories like yours aren’t real. They’re an excuse to murder Jews in the street and feel good about it. What would we want your children for, when we can barely feed our own? If that filthy slander gets out in the town, they’ll hang Ash to a lamppost.”
Lydia could not move, stuck in the moment like a drop of water freezing on a windowpane. Had she really been so gullible? What had Mr. Cohen told her? She cast her mind back. The only thing she remembered with any certainty was that he had lost the memory of his mother’s face, and that he loved his brother. That had seemed like enough.
Mr. Raphael pulled out his watch. “I told him I’d be gone by six.” He took her wrist in his hand. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore. That’s why I’m leaving, and why I’ve told you this. But he is still my brother and I will still protect him. You keep our secret, and I won’t tell anyone you said you’d marry whichever of us we thought best to get at your money.”
Her blood was freezing now, crackling along the length of her arms. She nodded. Incredibly, she thought, How will I get the money now?
Then she realized that Mr. Cohen was wandering around God knew where in God knew what state of mind. She had kissed him. She had kissed a child-stealer, a thief, a Jew. She had offered herself to him.
She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering. The moment had felt almost holy. His breath had stuttered. She had been so sure he was as overwhelmed as she was. Had he been despising her?
“Does he know you meant to tell me this?”
He nodded. Mr. Cohen must think her money entirely out of his grasp—which it was, of course. He might go to the Dymonds. Their matriarch Lady Tassell would love to hear about this.
Father would be so ashamed if he knew. Jamie—what would Jamie say? “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. I asked him not to come back until six. He may not come back at all. He never cared much about his things.”
Mr. Cohen might disappear into the night and take her indiscretion with him? No. She had to speak to him. She had to know what he would do.
“Where did you last see him?”
He frowned at her. “Why?”
“I have to speak to him.” Her throat hurt from whispering. “I have to know whether he’ll tell anyone that I…”
“He won’t. Not if you don’t do something to make him.”
“You will pardon me if I don’t take your word for it.” She was suddenly furious with the man in front of her. If he’s so honorable, why are you leaving him? She wasn’t stupid enough to say it out loud. “Somebody ought to see that he’s all right,” she said placatingly. “Don’t you think?”
He nodded reluctantly. “On the road towards Nuthurst, near the stand of aspens. Be—be kind to him.”
“I will.” This would be the last time she ever saw Mr. Cohen, if her luck was good. Better to send him off well-disposed towards her.
“Thank you. I’m sorry.” He crushed her hands painfully in his. Lydia didn’t like the reminder of how strong he was. She gave him a sympathetic touch on the shoulder and went out, glad to be escaping.
Chapter Eight
It was nearly dark. The shadows of the aspen trees stretched out of sight. Even poking her head out the coach window into the chill wind, Lydia could make out little beyond that something was stopped in the road ahead, a cart perhaps. She heard Mr. Cohen’s voice before she saw him.
“No, no, thank you!” he was saying in a loud, cheery voice. “I’d like to walk back. I’ve only stopped for a moment to rest.” He sounded as if nothing whatsoever was wrong.
He was precisely where his brother had said he would be. That meant he had been in one spot for at least an hour in this biting cold. For a moment, exasperation that other people could not manage to properly care for themselves swamped everything else.
“Pull up alongside,” she told the coachman. It was Madge Cattermole’s cart, no doubt on her way back from the market in Steyning. “You are a good Samaritan, Mrs. Cattermole,” Lydia said, leaning out the window. “Mr. Cahill has had rather a shock. His brother sent me to fetch him.”
She could not see his face, but she saw how he swung towards her at the words, flinching back.
“Mr. Ralph has gone on ahead to see your aunt. He didn’t think you would be recovered enough to travel.” She turned to the farmer’s wife. “Their great-aunt has come down with the influenza and is very ill.”
Mrs. Cattermole shook her head sadly. “It takes the old ones and children the worst.”
“Everything does,” he said.
There was an edge in his voice, but fortunately the woman did not seem to remark it. “Ben’t that the truth?” she said. “Well, my Lucy is expecting me. You’ll take him back to town, won’t you, ma’am?”
“I certainly will, thank you. Did you do well in Steyning?”
Mrs. Cattermole smiled. “Bettermost winter broccoli in the county. Good health to you and your family, sir. Evening, Miss Reeve.” She touched her whip to her forehead and drove off down the road.
Lydia opened the carriage door.
“If it’s the same to you,” he said, sounding perfectly normal and cheery again, “I’d rather walk. I think the air and the exercise will do me good.” He started off in the direction of Lively St. Lemeston.
By now the last sliver of sun had slipped below the horizon, leaving the road in darkness outside the faint circle of light
provided by the coach lamp. But Lydia had seen him shiver. She eyed the road reluctantly, then climbed out into the faint, chilly drizzle. The round iron rings of her pattens sank into the ground with a squelch. She followed him and promptly stepped into a puddle much deeper than it appeared.
Living in Sussex, Lydia spent a great deal of time almost falling over in the mud. Wet feet were also familiar. But she had never learned to enjoy either sensation. “You are damp and chilled and you have had a severe shock. Kindly get in the carriage.”
“I’m hardy as an ox.” His breath misted on the air in shuddering white bursts. “My brother needn’t have sent you.”
“Your brother didn’t send me.”
He flinched again. She stripped off her glove and reached out to feel his cheek, expecting him to flinch away from that too.
He didn’t. He stopped to look at her—the same look that had been driving her wild, the one that said he saw more than she meant him to. Now she knew it must be an acquired professional skill, which made it less frightening. It somehow did not make it any less enjoyable.
His cheek was cold and clammy. In the darkness, his eyes were black. “And our aunt?”
She jammed her chilled fingers back into her glove, conscious that they were in full view of the coachman. “Please get in the carriage, sir. It will not help your aunt for you to catch your death.”
His eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I ought not to go back to town at all. What did my brother tell you?”
At least he retained some instinct for self-preservation. She leaned in, muttering, “Mr. Cohen, if I meant to set the constable on you I would have done so, instead of ruining my shoes in this manner.”
He blinked at her. “You can’t like me that much,” he said at last, as if racking his brains for an explanation of her behavior and finding none. His shivering was growing worse.
Strange, how Mr. Raphael’s distress had repelled and frightened her, and his did not, when he was so much guiltier. Even knowing everything, she wanted instinctively to share her warmth with him. Had he used some trick to make her feel this way? Could she trust her instincts, or were they swindling her too?
“There is no unhappy creature that I would leave to die in the road,” she said. “Please. I brought hot beef broth in a flask, and hot bricks.”
He began again to walk. “I can’t be back before six. Rafe asked me—” His mouth crumpled a little, and he turned his face away.
Lydia was a stubborn, fretful patient herself. When she had had an inflammation of the lungs at fifteen, she had refused to eat. Aunt Packham had convinced her with one simple sentence: You’re scaring your brother. “Think how your brother will feel if he hears you’ve made yourself seriously ill,” she called after him, knowing it was cruel. “He’ll blame himself.”
He stopped. For several long moments he stood there, head bowed, unmoving except for his uncontrollable shivering. Then, without a word, he turned and walked past her to the carriage, mouth set.
She breathed a sigh of relief and allowed him to hand her in. “Here,” she said, passing him the rugs she had kept wrapped round the hot bricks. It was so dark out, and the road had been so muddy. She hesitated—and then, opening the panel, asked the coachman to drive slowly. She knew he must have noticed her new caution since her father’s accident, even if he was too tactful to say so. It embarrassed her, made her feel exposed, like being caught crying.
Did Mr. Cohen know how her father had died? Had Mr. Gilchrist told him that too? Could he guess that dark, muddy roads had never troubled her before? He has other things on his mind, she reminded herself.
Setting his wet hat and gloves on the seat beside him, he swathed himself in soft wool and leaned back against the squabs, the shadows under his eyes stark in the lantern light. Silently she offered him the flask. He wrapped his olive-skinned fingers around the warm leather and drank. There was no relief or pleasure in his face, only methodical efficiency as he went about staving off the chill that would distress his brother. When the flask was empty, he pulled off his boots and set his feet on a hot brick.
After his row with his brother, he had stood in the cold and wet for an hour, not moving.
She passed him a packet of sandwiches, and a second flask filled with hot tea. He shook his head. “I’ll only cast them up again.” He gave her that look—piercing was too harsh a word. It did not invade; it noticed, taking in everything she gave. “Are you all right? This must have been a shock to you.”
She could not reconcile this with what Mr. Raphael had told her. It was all so outlandish that she couldn’t feel the enormity of it. Her conversation with Mr. Gilchrist had upset her more.
Learning that he was a professional swindler should have made her shame a hundred times worse. Instead, it took the sting out of it. The whole affair was disgusting, and she was unwise to have trusted him, but she had been one of many victims. She wouldn’t stand out in his mind as more foolish than other women.
What a strange, vain thing the mind was.
“Do you mean to blackmail me?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “Not if you don’t mean to prosecute.” There was something boyish in the way he said it, as if he had broken something at play and was trying to sweet-talk the housekeeper. Only he’d been orphaned very young, and never had a housekeeper. She didn’t like to think whom he must have had to sweet-talk, growing up alone in a rookery. Then, as if life weren’t difficult enough, he had taken on a baby that didn’t even belong to him.
Yes, she still liked him. But she was mad, to be considering what she was considering.
“Tell me what happened.” She took off her damp bonnet to let her cap dry.
“Didn’t my brother?”
“I don’t mean the quarrel. Tell me what happened, when you—adopted him. The coachman can’t hear us. I know it.”
The corner of his mouth curled a fraction. “Do you now?”
“I used to like to ride on the box as a little girl. I could never hear what my parents were saying inside.”
“Adopted.” He made an amused sound. “That sounds so legal.” He said legal the way Lydia’s friends said Whiggish, a little disdainful and a little bemused. “There is absolutely nothing legal in this story.”
“I’ve been the patroness of Lively St. Lemeston since I was seventeen,” she said, as much for her own benefit as his. “I am not easily shocked.” She clung to that. She thought this story would be bad. Lively St. Lemeston wasn’t London.
He gave her a sorry look as if he was thinking the same thing, but he said, “My mother died when I was five,” in a storytelling sort of voice. In Lydia’s experience very few people who had had a bad upset could really resist talking about it, when pressed. It ate at them until they did.
“Do you remember how I picked your aunt’s knot out, when we met? At five, I had already been employed for a year picking the embroidery out of stolen handkerchiefs. After my mother died, the woman who kept the house she worked in didn’t think that income alone was worth the expense of keeping me.”
His mother had been a whore, then. He didn’t seem to find that notable enough to comment on.
“She sent me out to steal with a gang of boys a little older than I was. I was good at it, but not so good she didn’t hope to make more a couple of years later by apprenticing me to a gang of bodysnatchers.” Most people, by this point in a story, would go on as if by compulsion. He stopped, and asked gently, “Do you know what that means?”
It annoyed her that he was behaving as if he were being kind to her when the shoe was quite on the other foot. “Men who steal corpses for dissection,” she said sharply. Then she realized what that meant. He had stolen corpses. As a child, she reminded herself, as a child, but she drew back in her seat nevertheless. She thought of her father, recently buried. There was still an armed watch over his grave at night to keep away men like this.
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He saw her thrill of spiritual horror and smiled. “Yes, it was rather disgusting,” he said so matter-of-factly that her throat closed. A child among such horrors—how could he help but grow inured to them? “I wasn’t a squeamish boy, though, and I was too young to be much help in digging. I mostly fetched and carried and held the dark lantern and kept a lookout for guards. Besides, even in London there isn’t work for more than a few big gangs, and we weren’t one of them. We only robbed graves when the opportunity came our way, and the rest of the time I went on learning to steal. It wasn’t a bad life, but I was lonely.”
Not a bad life? It sounded like a nightmare.
Her disbelief must have shown on her face. “It was hard,” he said. “But poor children work. I’d rather steal than scramble up chimneys or work in the mines, or be up from dawn to dusk scratching in a field. But all that seems ordinary to you, I imagine, because the law permits it—that a child should get up at dawn and thread machines until it’s too dark to see, and then go home to a place that isn’t even warm and fall asleep hungry.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I and my friends have been pushing for a Royal Commission for years to investigate the conditions in factories. The Act of 1802 has no teeth and I’m assured that it is ignored with impunity…” She trailed off, sensing that the next part of her speech would not be well received, about how factory owners had not been brought up to be masters and had no sense of their sacred responsibilities to those under them.
He gave her a look that was startlingly fond. “You’re like Rafe. You want to make over the world all by yourself. It is what it is, and that’s not a tragedy. Rich folk go on as if not being born one of them is the saddest thing in the world. As if we must go about weeping and wailing and wishing we could change places. Well, Miss Reeve, I like your house, and I like your fine tea, but I wouldn’t like to be you.” She bristled, and he laughed. “It’s nothing against you. I’d just rather be me. I’d always rather be me. Would you really give up your own life to get something you thought was better?”
